Rural Development

 Rural development refers to the continuous and comprehensive socio-economic process, attempting to improve all aspects of rural life.

Process of Rural development

1. Development of human resources

2. Development of Infrastructure

3. Land Reforms

4. Alleviation of property

5. Development of the productive resources

RURAL CREDIT: In agriculture, farmers are in strong need of credit due to the long time gap between crop sowing and realization of income.

SOURCES OF RURAL CREDIT

Non-institutional sources

1.     Moneylenders

2.     Relatives

3.     Traders and commission agents

4.     Rich landlords

Institutional Sources

1.     Co-operative Credit

2.     Land development banks

3.     Commercials bank credit

4.     Regional Rural banks

5.     The government

6.     National bank for agriculture and rural development(NABARD)

7.     Self-Help group (SHG) Bank Linkage Programme for Microfinance

Critical appraisal for rural banking

1.     Insufficiency

2.     Inadequate Coverage of institutional sources

3.     Inadequate amount of sanction

4.     Less attention to poor or marginal farmers

5.     Growing overdue

Agriculture market system

It is a process that involves assembling, storage, processing, transportation, packaging, grading, and distribution of different agricultural commodities across the country.

Problems faced by farmers

·       Manipulation by big  Traders

·       Lack of markets Information

·       Lack of storage facilities

Measures to improve agricultural marketing

1.   Regulated markets

2.   Infrastructure Facilities

3.   Cooperative marketing

4.   Different Policy Instrument

Emerging Alternative marketing channels

1.   Origin of farmers Market

2.   Alliance with national multinational companies

Non-farms areas of employment

Animals Husbandry: concerned with breeding, rearing, and caring for farm animals.

Dairying: Involves breeding,  raising, and utilization of dairy animals for various dairy products.

Fisheries: involves catching processing or selling fish and other aquatic animals.

Horticulture: Involves cultivating Fruits vegetables, tuber crops, etc.

Informative Technology: Involves the use of computers and telecommunication to retrieve and store and transmit information.

 

Sustainable development and organic farming

Meaning of organic farming

Organic farming is the form of agriculture that relies on techniques such as crop rotation, green manure, compost, and biological pest control.

The benefit of organic farming

1.    Economical farming

2.    Generates income through exports

3.    Provides healthy food

4.    Source of employment

5.    Safety of the environment

Challenging before Organic farming

1.    Less popular

2.    Lack of infrastructure and marketing facilities

3.    Low yield

4.    Shorter food life

5.    Limited choice of crops 

Evaluation of rural development

1.   Stress of diversification

2.   Rural and urban linkage

3.   Better facilities

4.   More emphasis on sustainable development